


The Science of a Downfall

by BlueKiwi



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e01 A Scandal in Belgravia, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, F/M, Gen, Post-A Scandal in Belgravia, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:55:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueKiwi/pseuds/BlueKiwi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how far you run, some ghosts will always find you. [Post-A Scandal in Belgravia, alternate ending]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Science of a Downfall

Sometimes you hear her voice on the wind.

You scoff at the notion that she could be behind you, as elusive and striking as a chaotic bolt of lightning, yet you cannot help yourself from turning to see if perhaps she stands there. But there is nothing there except wind and pavement and you pretend as if you had known all along that this was going to be how to felt - because that’s what you do. 

You reason. 

You calculate. 

You deduce.

And she’s still not there and that’s when the guilt, always so strongly buried beneath _reason_ and _ego_ , begins to furrow into your mind. You stop--too often now--for a cigarette, but the nicotine doesn’t calm you. It only makes you revisit that long period of time that _she_ was so entrenched in your life that you could not pass one day without thinking of the heady floral scent of her perfume, the intricate decal of black lace against alabaster skin, or the echo of razor sharp heels against wooden floors.

Dominatrix. Riddle. Traitor. Bitch. Genius. Just titles, all of them. Given to her by others, so many others--but none of them were truly _her_. They were parts of a whole, facets to an impossible enigma.

Irene Adler.

 _The_ Woman.

It’s only nostalgia, you think, even as you run from Moriarty’s ghostly shadow and leave an old scandalized life behind (and it’s _not_ running away, you argue to yourself--it’s only finding a temporary and alternate solution to a rather permanent and fatal conclusion). Even the best men--even _Sherlock Holmes_ \--must fall to it at some point in their lives, and you are content with accepting this as a mere annoying chink in your armor that is easily ignored. She is not coming back. _She is not coming back_.

Not after Karachi.

But sometimes, in the months and years that follow, you wonder _what if_. You are good at painting these scenarios in your head, as flawlessly detailed as any of your memories, and you create these faux experiences slowly and expertly as you sip coffee alongside the Seine or stroll under the blazing sun in Rabat or look out at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean from the bay of San Francisco. You travel the world with the ghosts of a deranged criminal and an utterly indescribable woman dogging your every step but, just as you do against the biting winds of Chicago, you hunker down against them, raising the collar of your coat against the chill gust of remorse.

For a very long time, you think it is ridiculous. John explains his spin of the story to you, and the words and sentences and plot reek of a faerie tale your brother has created (and you never stop to wonder why Mycroft would want to soften the blow for you, why he would create such a blatantly fanciful lie of life in face of the guilt that might gradually corrode those walls of yours). When he tells you, you absently think that John’s calming manner leaves much to be desired, that his lie is so obvious that it is a wonder why he even tries. But you pretend to accept it.

And later your fingers trace the keypad of the phone--this phone, the phone at the center of so much controversy and you can only imagine her as she types that last lonely message--and you smile and shake your head because that’s what she wanted. It was a game. You both played--you won, she lost.

Oh, she lost most _decisively_.

You would have followed her, you think in the months to come. In the days after your death and the storm surrounding that, you think that perhaps Mycroft--in his own way--was right about something. But you burned that bridge with fire and stubbornness from hurt pride and you _did not follow her_. Oh, you watched her, like some grand bird of prey watching the world pass by below, with the dispassionate eye of a god. From that night onward, you watched her run, watched her try to work out the ruins of her own game with the chains of mortality around her neck. There was no frantic dash, no maddened haste to escape the inevitable--no, this was the _Woman_. Even with the debris of her own pride surrounding her, she would not so easily give in to panic. 

But she still fled. You tried to calculate her plan, but that was the lovely, frustrating thing about her--she was a puzzle that you had only once figured out. And you told yourself as you imagined her in the streets of Kathmandu that it really was her own fault--she wanted to play the game, she wanted to create the pawns and the rooks and force everyone into a match of suicide chess. But she overestimated--ah, she was nowhere near as clever as she thought she was, destroying herself because she had done something as foolish as become infatuated with _him_ of all people.

You still trace the pattern in your mind. From Nepal to the colorful Mumbai and from there to Delhi. For weeks, she didn’t move and you thought (you may have hoped, but even now you’ll never admit it) that she had slipped from the vengeful sights of her enemies. You could imagine her laughing to herself, that red smile that devours secrets wide and secretive and promising a kiss of chaotic retribution for those who had forced her exile. And when you learned of her flight to Dubai, you could only snort at her sheer gall...but that didn’t keep you from waiting for the erotic sigh of a message from her. You expected it, needed it, _desired_ it. 

` are you up for another match, Mr. Holmes?`

`turn on your television, I’ve sent you a rather fascinating riddle`

`I miss your adorable little hat`

`the view is spectacular from here. join me for dinner?`

You didn’t have the chance. The messages never came...except for one.

It was followed by silence. She did not run to the bustling metropolises of China. She did not venture across the oceans to hide in the proud bulk of America. She said six months. It was four months, seventeen days, three hours, forty-seven seconds (and even then, you are not sure of the very moment death fell but you calculate the weight of the blade and the velocity and the strength of the executioner and the Woman’s delicate white neck and this is a memory you do not want to recreate).

She has become undone and she has taken you with her.

You could have stopped it, you know. And you have created the scene in your head--so real that sometimes you believe that this is the truth instead of rivulets of blood and blankly staring eyes. You can feel the worn hilt in your hand. You see her bowed dark head. You tell her to run. You can almost feel the adrenaline as it pumps into your veins as you swing the blade down and around and the Woman is by your side, darkly enigmatic, frustratingly defiant, but very much alive.

But…

But.

When Moriarty puts a bullet into his own brain--laughing the entire time with almost childish glee--you know you’ve watched the last of the puzzles fall apart. People are notoriously predictable--even John, despite the fact that he is one of the few people in the world that you’ve come to respect--and with Moriarty’s ghost joining the Woman’s, you realize that you’ve blocked yourself into a corner. A lonely isolated corner, created by pride, created by sheer stubbornness. The only two people who could have understood have vanished into the wind, into the past, into memory.

You don’t mourn for Moriarty. But you feel something hot and terrible burn in your chest--not your heart, _never_ your heart--when you think of Irene Adler. You refuse to believe it is guilt (you could have saved her). You refuse to acknowledge that perhaps her feelings could have been reciprocated (you could have let her walk out of the room that night, betrayed Mycroft, betrayed countless of faceless people, but the Woman would be _alive_ ).

But these are issues of the heart, that horrible human emotion called _sentiment_ , and you’ll be damned if you allow the science of her downfall to be the construction of yours.

You ignore it for two years. Two long years--a retirement, perhaps. Or a strangely planned holiday. But there is a spark that is missing. You tell yourself that it is John--after all, you’ve lied to him, made him believe you are dead, seen him mourn within shouting distance of you and you walked away. It is so much ~~easier~~ more logical to say it is John--John is tangible. John is in mourning. John is his _friend_. John did not almost destroy the British government with selfish games and coy smiles and tear apart your pride and genius in front of others.

But it always comes back to _her_. In Paris, in Rabat, in Sarajevo, in Belgrade. It is always the Woman.

She could not run from death and you...you cannot run from her.

_Out of my head._

_**Out of my head**_.

It doesn’t work. It never works. Even when you’re resurrected, she is still a ghost and she will haunt you and your memories because when it came time to act...the one time that you _should_ have, truly should have, you didn’t.

Because you are Sherlock Holmes.

And romance--adoration--love--these are just _words_. Chemical reactions. Science. Nothing more. There is nothing abstract about them. There was nothing abstract about the Woman. She was black and white and shadows and secrets, with the world spinning in her hand and your heart and mind on a leash--you can’t deny this anymore but you can only speak it in hushed tones to the ghosts.

_”This is how I want you to remember me.”_

And their judgmental silence is just as damning.

_”The woman who beat you.”_

And sometimes, when you are utterly unprepared for it, you hear her voice on the wind--and you realize, even though she’s gone, you have still lost the game.


End file.
